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The University of Utah Athletics
Utah vs. College of Idaho Post Game Quotes
12/28/2015 12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 28, 2015
UTAH vs. COLLEGE OF IDAHO Post Game Quotes
Utah 115, College of Idaho 74
Head Coach Larry Krystkowiak
On the first four minutes of the game…
Well, a lot of half speed. We weren't guarding, turned it over. You saw it. It was about as ugly as of a beginning as we have had in a long time. Give credit to those guys. They were ready to play, they weren't intimidated at all. They came in firing and we knew they were going to shoot a bunch of shots and shoot a bunch of three's. It all happened. We were exposed in a lot of ways. We weren't ready to play from the tip off. It really got our attention. We have to be better.
On perimeter defense…
It was pretty good. We locked in. We haven't done a great job defending the three point line. They still hit 39 of them. They still hit more than we would have liked. For the most part, they are an undersized three point shooting team. We did a decent job. Still, whether its shooting three's or point of attack, dribble drive stuff, we have to improve for sure from a defensive point of view. The price of poker. A heads up as we head into league play. We have to get dialed in and make sure we are doing a lot better job. Overall, the last two and a half weeks, I have been pretty pleased with our defensive efforts for the most part with the exception of the beginning of the game.
On how the team is sharing the ball…
I think ever since the Wichita State game; It was a little bit embarrassing guys trying to do stuff on their own. I think the identity of our team is to share the basketball. It is a fun way to play. It's the only way I want to coach. There were a few occasions tonight where we actually probably over passed it. I will take that. That is one of those ones that really correctable and guys are doing a nice job of finding each other. We are doing a nice job of inside out passes. The thing that still concerns me is to have 17 turnovers; Eight in the first half and nine in the second. I don't know if we got a little lose with some of our passing. I like where we are offensively, the way we are executing, sharing the ball, shooting it and percentage wise. We need to make sure we are getting shot on the rim. When we turn it over that high of percentage of time, its dis heartening and its going to end up being our achilles heel. We have to have a renewed focus of making sure we are doing a lot better job of taking care of the ball.
On defense starting to press…
We needed to stir it up a little bit and turn them lose. I think the big key to starting the game, I like to think that we can get out and transition and run, but you can't do that if you are taking the ball out of the net. They scored on such a high percentage early and then once you get some stops, we have some horses that can get out and had some nice paint touches and opened up the floor for our three point shooters. But it is all going to be based on, its not so much about us getting turnovers necessarily, it's committing to getting some stops and some kills. We call it a kill when you get three consecutive stops in a row. We had a number of those that opened up the game for us. Sometimes you need to throw a curve ball out there and dead balls situations, we did a good job full court. We got them to turn it over a few times and sped them up. You don't always want to count on doing that but tonight, I think that was one of those things that gave us a little bit of momentum.
On taking out Kyle Kuzma and Jakob Poeltl in the beginning…
We talked about turnovers and miss rebounding assignments, non negotiable guys were going to come out of the game. Jakob threw it into basket support and Kuz had a couple soft plays back and forth. You know, those are the things we talked about, having defensive urgency and not turning ti over. For the most part, everybody got subbed out the minute they turned it over. You try. You can't have hockey substitutions on the fly when you can pull a guy out. We want guys to think about it and be smart. I think playing time, some of those substitutions probably gets a person's attention more than anything.
Senior Guard Dakarai Tucker
On his renewed focus…
It was just a mindset thing. Getting back to it personally, getting back into the gym, just starting to shoot. Letting the game come to me, doing those simple plays.
On what Coach K. said in the first timeout…
There was a second where we disrespected the game and that is something we can't do even against lower opponents. We have to respect the game at all times and don't take anybody for granted who steps on that court.
On coming in and changing the pace of the game…
That has been pretty much my role ever since I have been here to be the energy guy. That's my personal job that I feel I have to do. When the team needs help, I come in and help in any way I can.
On the second half letting College of Idaho sneak up…
It was loss of focus. The little things that we cant let take advantage of us. Its just little mishaps we had.
- - - - - - -
College of Idaho Head Coach Scott Garson
On being back in Utah where he was with Rick Majerus…
Actually, I stood in his spot. He never sat down and I don't think I sat down for more than maybe two plays today. I did exactly what he did which was stand the whole game and get in the way of my assistant coaches. It was really, really special to be here, to be back in a place that as I have told you many times that I love more than any other place than the College of Idaho and I always have. I will always be a Ute. I have a degree from here and I have my favorite years here until I got the call and that includes nine years at UCLA and I really mean that. It is special to be here and I told our team before we came out of the locker room that I wanted to compete the way that Coach Majerus' team competed everyday at practice, every game because we competed better than anybody else in the country and I thought our guys really did that tonight. It was really fun to jump on the lead against a really good Utah team that's going to win a lot of games this year.
On competing with nationally ranked Utah…
There's no question, I know how it is on the other side too. Coach Krystkowiak, I'm sure, couldn't quite get his guys to understand how well we shoot the ball until they see it. We really shot it and our guys came ready for the moment. I'm really proud of the way our guys came out and played with confidence and composure and that's really hard to do in a situation like this. I mean what can you say. Couldn't have been a better start and couldn't have been a better situation. These guys will have this memory for the rest of their lives. We were better than the No. 21 ranked team in the country for about 8-10 minutes tonight.
On getting better and gaining confidence…
I was really proud of the way our guy's effort was and that's what is all about. It's about getting better. We are trying to get better for conference and this was a great exhibition game for us because we were able to get better here against a really good team and now we understand the kind of effort, the kind of composure, the kind of confidence that we have to play with going into our conference games and Wednesday and Thursday against Evergreen State and Northwest. We have to bring our A-game and we brought it for a while here tonight. As I told our team, I now know what to expect from our team and I'm going to expect that kind of effort to start every game.
Players Mentioned
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